Sunday, April 21, 2013

Tufte’s Short Post # 19: Temporary vs. Permanent Cuts

Temporary vs. Permanent cuts. Again, this is a settled issue in macroeconomics that politicians choose to ignore. In short, policies that are viewed as temporary are unlikely to have strong effects. Further, while something like Obamacare as a whole is probably permanent, large aspects of it are malleable, and therefore best regarded as temporary. Perhaps the biggest fault in our current political system is that grandstanding has led to an upsurge in temporary policies.

There’s an arthouse film called Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. You’re getting Twenty-Six Short Posts from Dr. Tufte. :) These are on why it’s difficult to understand the current macroeconomic situation.

Joe Baker is not a macroeconomist, but we all do a little bit of everything at SUU, so he has to teach principles of macroeconomics sometimes. The other day he asked for pointers about summing up for his students why we can’t quite figure out what’s wrong with the economy. I came up with 26 reasons, most of which have been discussed in class, and all of which are now required.